Bomb hoax caller sparks panic

Two Metro stations, three government offices, two railway stations, two hospitals.

Had the telephone calls been genuine, bombs would have exploded at all these places.

Ten crank calls kept more than 200 Delhi policemen busy through the day on Tuesday.

And though the calls — made over four hours — were traced to two phone booths in the premises of the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital (RML), barely five metres from a police booth, the caller was not caught. Police even said five calls were made within a span of a minute each.

The first call to the police control room came at 10.08 am. It said a bomb would explode at RML Hospital. At 10.22 am came the next call, saying, “Sorry, there was a mistake. The bomb has been placed at Safdarjung Hospital.”

A third call at 10.27 am warned a bomb would explode at Vikas Minar, the headquarters of the Delhi Development Authority, in central Delhi. When the phone rang again at 10.40 am, it said a bomb had been placed at the NDMC building.

After extensive searches, all four places were declared safe.

The next lot of calls came shortly after 2 pm, saying in turn that bombs had been placed at the Town Hall, the Rajiv Chowk metro station, the Chandni Chowk metro station, and the New and Old Delhi railway stations. The last call again claimed the RML Hospital was the target.